Novartis (NYSE:NVS) Upgraded at Wall Street Zen

Key Points

• Novartis has been upgraded from a "buy" to a "strong-buy" rating by Wall Street Zen, indicating increased confidence in the company's stock performance.
• The stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" with a target price of $120.33, while various brokerages have issued differing ratings ranging from "sell" to "buy."
• Novartis reported earnings of $2.42 per share for the last quarter, exceeding analyst estimates and reflecting a year-over-year revenue increase of 12.3%.

Novartis (NYSE:NVS - Get Free Report) was upgraded by investment analysts at Wall Street Zen from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report released on Saturday.

Several other brokerages have also recently commented on NVS. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a "sell" rating and set a $118.00 price objective (down from $119.00) on shares of Novartis in a research note on Friday, September 12th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Novartis from an "underweight" rating to an "equal weight" rating and set a $123.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Friday, August 8th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a "buy" rating on shares of Novartis in a research note on Thursday, August 21st. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a "buy (b)" rating on shares of Novartis in a research note on Wednesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have issued a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $120.33.

Novartis Stock Performance

Shares of NVS stock opened at $130.05 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $274.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.81 and a beta of 0.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 0.82 and a quick ratio of 0.62. The business has a fifty day moving average of $125.14 and a 200 day moving average of $117.86. Novartis has a 1 year low of $96.06 and a 1 year high of $133.55.

Novartis (NYSE:NVS - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 17th. The company reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.38 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $14.05 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.94 billion. Novartis had a return on equity of 41.08% and a net margin of 25.64%.The firm's quarterly revenue was up 12.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.97 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Novartis will post 8.45 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Novartis

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in shares of Novartis by 5.2% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 8,606,724 shares of the company's stock valued at $959,535,000 after purchasing an additional 422,869 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Novartis by 5.3% during the 2nd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 7,121,414 shares of the company's stock valued at $861,762,000 after purchasing an additional 358,282 shares in the last quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P increased its holdings in shares of Novartis by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P now owns 5,581,576 shares of the company's stock valued at $675,427,000 after purchasing an additional 78,483 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Novartis by 60.3% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 3,660,485 shares of the company's stock valued at $408,071,000 after purchasing an additional 1,377,252 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its holdings in shares of Novartis by 2.2% during the 1st quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,180,281 shares of the company's stock valued at $243,058,000 after purchasing an additional 47,690 shares in the last quarter. 13.12% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Novartis Company Profile

Novartis AG engages in the research, development, manufacture, and marketing of healthcare products in Switzerland and internationally. The company offers prescription medicines for patients and physicians. It focuses on therapeutic areas, such as cardiovascular, renal and metabolic, immunology, neuroscience, and oncology, as well as ophthalmology and hematology.

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